Bacteria are "fully conscious", if not all the galaxies, the chemical elements and pretty much everything that we humans can experience, including silicon dildos - here on Earth. This is why the Fermi paradox exists and why so many nutjobs believe in actual aliens visiting Earth.
You see, the immediate observation of this very moment, it's universe - the one that is is within us - is completely alien. The very next moment is more alien than anything that previously existed in the previous moment, but we remember it so it does not seem alien.
Why do people fear "real" aliens? Because the ego itself, or the "consciousness" within the nervous system as some may call it, knows fear. Every living cell and molecule, every moving particle that exists within a "system" has a fear of it's own. It has a purpose and meaning, and it does it's best to continue the same project; which has been taken over by nature in our spacetime - by humans and their Alien Dreamtime, their experience of that which is consciousness of this planet, which we very much felt at home, but only at some points in our lives, eventually a whole species must depart to the stars because that's just another planet giving birth to intergalactic, new species - which we will become eventually, but we're still be far behind mushroom spores and other life which travels through spacetime and throughout hyperspace, seeking habitable planets and eventually some sort of a singularity in the Universe.

>>50597

>so many nutjobs

Including Former Canadian Minister of Defense Paul Hellyer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX06nI04j0g

>>50601

>mfw people keep posting this joker over and over again on /sagan/

if you don't like talking about aliens why are you posting in a thread about aliens

>>50602

>joker

This man has more qualifications in his little finger than you have the potential to achieve.

I think his record speaks for itself when I consider him to be a trusted source of crucial and groundbreaking information. He even has official military sources.

>>50598

>How close does any object have to be in order to be in orbit around the Earth?

Lagrangian point L1 is 1.5m km from the Earth.

This is where the gravity well of the Sun wins over.

Well, the reason I ask is basically this; my fictional world would, ideally, involve an asteroid belt or field located within flying range of a planet, for strategic use during a conflict. Based on your statistic of 1.5 km, this seems plausible, correct?

>>50604
He said 1.5 million km, not 1.5 km.

>>50604
The field could extend anywhere from about 120km from the Earth's Surface (edge of the atmosphere, or else drag will slow them down and make them fall) to 1.m million km from Earth where they will be torn away by the Sun.

Keep in mind that a planet surrounded by a large asteroid field would be constantly bombarded and likely uninhabitable. The asteroids may be in perfect orbits around the planet, but they will eventually hit each other, and then the planet.

Perhaps a large ring of tiny ice fragments instead?

>>50606
Self Correction, around 120km is the working altitude of a propelled artificial satellite.

The rocks would likely have to be beyond the exosphere which is at 10,000km to reduce any possible drag to 0.

And the field could extend to 1,500,000 kilometers away.

It still doesn't sound like a plausible setting for a story, asteroids tend to wreck the plot.

tl;dr Moon base first, Mars base second, but actual colony on Mars first.

The conservative, prudent way to go would be to establish an outpost/base on the moon, something that can be used like an airport when we get to phase 2, the habitation of Mars. A lunar base would be cooperatively run by a multi-national group similar to the way the ISS is run. It will primarily be a research outpost, but commercial exploitation of the moon will eventually necessitate a "space traffic control" system. Working on the moon will be like working in Alaska. Miserable, but decent paying. The push to Mars will follow some limited commercial exploitation of the planet. Most likely a mining operation will develop, around which a community of employees will be built, although I don't think that the people attached to the commercial development of Mars will be the ones that settle there (even though I do think that the businesses that set up on Mars early on will have a huge say in how Mars develops). I think a religious organization, or perhaps several, will swarm to Mars just as soon as safe, stable human habitation is possible. They'll be supplied from Earth, via the Moon, for the first several years, perhaps decades, until they can develop sustainable biosphere management and begin supporting themselves. Governments will attempt to assert authority, but will be limited to relying on the good will of the Mars locals, who will probably be kind of like the Taliban. Mars will be consist of various minor theocracies for perhaps one or two hundred years at the most, before industry becomes interested in selling Mars to the consumer population. Then there will be large scale migration to Mars, from luxury cruises, to retirement living, to brothels and casinos and drug havens. It will be like the wild west, except there will be facial recognition and no guns. Then it's off to the races, and humanity has another world to mess up.

I also have a longwinded plan for bolstering Mars' atmosphere and magnetosphere, but I won't go into that now.

>>50585

>Working on the moon will be like working in Alaska. Miserable, but decent paying.

Well, I think that is too pessimistic. Everyone I've talked to who has worked at Antarctica has absolutely loved it because it's an amazing place. I imagine people working on the moon would feel the same way.

Let's consider pic related. Is it really that fair fetched?

Using Israel as a projection of Human Social Deconstruction (ignore Palestine for this one)

They are Selectively De-Jewishness-ing wannabe Israelis to reduce the Crowding

You think Space/Mars/Asteroid Colonies gonna be Different?

Out the AirLock wit ye - you're not Space Colonist enough for Our Kind!

Thread has been locked

Thread was locked by: Quetzalcoatl

Reason: get your /tinfoil/ hats ready, gentlemen.

Lunar! The moon is made of cheese and we can harvest it for delicious meals.

>>50433
Being 'insanely strong' (high tensile strength in this case) wouldn't protect them from things like lateral forces like a plane, or some space junk.
I think space junk would be more dangerous than terrorists by far.

>>50434
Space junk is few and far between, there are methods in development now that could deflect such material. The cable wouldn't have to be stationary either.

>>50432
There were no automated reliable systems in place. Dealing with domestic flights in very busy air space is very different to a hundred mile exclusion zone.

>>50432

>implying things didnt go exactly as planned in 2001

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=2343
There's an alternate design for an inflatable space tower.

I'd imagine that when we have the technology/resources to build this, religiously affiliated terrorism would have died out a long long time ago.

Fuck how we'd stop beardy cunts flying into it, I want to know how this would change humanity. Imagine sliding down it like a fireman

>>50560
That is not what that image is. That is a dust cloud, and is probably on the order of a light year across. It is a small object residing in our galaxy. If there was a zone void of all matter, don't you think you'd be able to see the stars behind it???

>>50561

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12546-biggest-void-in-space-is-1-billion-light-years-across.html#.Ub18-px2Opo

>>50569
I looked through the webpage but couldn't see the part where it shows that picture.

>>50560
The post below is quite correct. His is not a void, it is Barnard 86 an absorption nebula about half a lightyear across. It's a comparatively dense region of space.

>>50560

>mfw Gentoo logo in space

>>50550
Depends if you're a relative man or an M-theory man.

>>50546
>>50546

bro. i am way too stoned for that shit. what the fuck IS that?!?!?

>>50576
No one would argue m-theory is standard theory, it remains to be tested. Until then there are 3 spatial dimensions.

>>50518
But on what property would your physical body operate? Your blood cannot pump with out a somewhere to have once been and not anymore.

>>50546
What the fuck did I just read..

>>50563

So are they hiding themselves or are they working with the government as you said originally?
Regardless, that isn't an argument for them being here. Many things could hide themselves very well, doesn't mean they are doing so.

>>50557

>i might ask people why they keep, feed, and train pets

That analogy only works if you think of comparative animal intelligences as on a spectrum instead of acknowledging a tipping point between base cognition vs. the conscious understanding that leads to space shuttles and the atom bomb.

If it's the former, sure, there's always someone smarter, from termites, to squirrels, to dogs, to humans, to visitors from the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. But if instead you recognize that tipping point of conscious understanding, then everything beyond that tipping point would be recognized as something different from animals not past that point.

The reason I believe it's the latter is we have no examples of individual non-human animals who happen to learn how to communicate ideas with anywhere near the complexity of even relatively dull human child notions like "what happens when I die?" At best, we were able to teach a couple of chimps how to slap together some sign language symbols to form crude references to ideas like "give food."

If interspecies intelligence were just some spectrum of relative inferiors and superiors, I would expect at least a few individual nonhuman animals would have broken into philosophy at some point. The complete lack of that happenstance leads me to believe there's a distinct, tipping point mechanism that allowed for humans to think in the way we do, and it's no more something nonhuman animals on Earth can learn than being cold blooded is something we can learn.

Now *beyond* this tipping point, I think intelligence is a spectrum. Flight might be a good analogy. Animals that can't fly aren't on a spectrum with animals that do fly. They just can't fly. It's an on / off, all or nothing proposition. Beyond the tipping point, there are animals which can fly better than other animals who can fly, but there isn't some super-flight version of flight that makes regular flight look like walking. There's just varying speeds and distances of flight vs. a lack of flight.

>>50563

Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>50566
why not both, it's not like regular people don't hide in government

>>50575

>on a spectrum
>then everything beyond that tipping point would be recognized as something different from animals not past that point

i guess this is what i believe. but you seem to think that this and what you believe are separate, it's not like on real spectrums there aren't definable aspects as there are in colors

>base cognition vs. the conscious understanding that leads to space shuttles and the atom bomb

For that point to have merit you also have to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of years that the same minds that developed the atomic bomb were hunter gatherers

>The reason I believe it's the latter is we have no examples of individual non-human animals who happen to learn how to communicate ideas with anywhere near the complexity of even relatively dull human child notions

first of all, there are some animals that show signs of what might be considered metaphysical thought, like mourning the dead. second, i don't see why all animals should gain sentience if it's a spectrum; that's not how nature and evolution work

>I would expect at least a few individual nonhuman animals would have broken into philosophy at some point

Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>50580

>why not both, it's not like regular people don't hide in government

So they're orders of magnitudes more advanced than us letting them hide form us, but low ranking government officials know about them? Don't you see how paradoxical your reasoning is?

"You can't disprove it" is not an argument for something. The onus is on the one making claim.

>>50582
i'm not saying low ranking government officials have first hand knowledge of them, but even the upper levels talk

>The onus is on the one making claim

well someone made the claim that intelligent life being in contact with our government is too ridiculous to consider, so

or, be justin bieber http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/22797836

>>50495
i hope they send him up in an ikea space capsule

>>50504
as long as it falls apart.

>>50509
As long as it doesn't come back.

>>50549
as long as you love me...

>>50552

>420-tonne complex

MFW

>>50552
Also now I'm gonna try make that module in Kerbal Space Program

Meanwhile, on the Chinese space station...

There's supposed to be 2 falcon 9 launches this summer... is /sagan/ planning on watching them? I'm not too far from Vandenberg AFB

>>50525
I wouldn't make plans.
It's best to take SpaceX schedules with skepticism. The second falcon 9 flight of summer SES-8 has slipped to September. The other launch for summer is planned to be the fist flight of v1.1 from a new launch site no less, commentators at the moment are not hopeful it will stay on current schedule. New site, new rocket variant, new engine variant and new fairing, it's already been delayed. At the moment SpaceX admit there is no launch date.

>>50526
tbh that's better than what I expected the reason for the lack of a definitive date was. I remember the date being july 9th, and then it was moved up? to some time this month? So I figured they didn't want spectators or anything to risk a launch or whatever, but if that's wrong I'm glad

Update on F9 v1.1: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2013/06/testing-times-spacexs-new-falcon-9-v-1-1/

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31429.195

It looks like watching these guys might be a reliable source for dates